4G CMOS nanometer receivers for mobile systems: Challenges and solutions

This paper presents the design challenges and solutions for 4 G nanometer radio receivers for mobile devices. The specifications for the ZERO-IF/LOW-IF 4 G receiver architecture are derived. Limitations due to the use of low-voltage nanometer technologies are described and novel circuit technique mobile systems, such as wideband noise reduction, inductor-less peaking, passive mixing, and low flicker noise amplification are proposed. Finally, a 1.2-V 90 nm CMOS receiver front-end for the proposed WiMAX/LTE receiver is designed employing novel circuit techniques. The front-end covers 700 MHz - 6 GHz, providing a total gain of 34 dB, noise figure of 4 dB, flicker noise corner of 10 kHz, and a third order intercept point of -10 dBm/0 dBm, while consuming a total power of 10.2 mW.